“Inheritance” - November 6, 2016

Ephesians 1:11-23

            I want to thank the congregation for the pastor’s appreciation reception last week, for the beautiful scrapbook of kind words that was put together and for the warm spirit which I feel here and which extends to so many people.  I am fortunate to follow a long series of pastors here at First Church whom I admire and who both inspire and at times keep me in awe.  Anybody, in any setting, follows people who have left some kind of legacy.  In the case of preachers, we usually know one another, if not personally then at least by reputation.  Sometimes, though, we learn things unexpectedly about somebody’s ministry that enriches that understanding. 

For instance, I have great admiration for Mindy McKonly, and it only increased this week when some junk mail arrived in my box addressed to her from “Cat Lovers against the Bomb”, who identify themselves as “feline-loving progressives”.  Even a dog-person like me just has to appreciate that.

            It also puts me in mind that there are always going to be echoes of someone’s presence or influence that will linger long after the world’s awareness of them, and that the positive legacy that people of faith pass on is part of what we leave not only for the world, but that we hand over to God’s own use and keeping.  Those are “the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints” [Ephesians 1:18].  What we do with what God gives us and with God’s ongoing help is a demonstration of “the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” [Ephesians 1:19]

            In just a moment we will light candles honoring and remembering people whose influence for good is still strong among us.  Some of them are famous and their works well-known.  Three such people found their way onto our list this morning and we will light candles in their memory right now:

                      Francis Xavier Cabrini,

Mother Theresa,

Shimon Peres.

There are others whose influence is less famous but no less real – and here I speak of people I have known, or have known a bit about, so forgive me if I don’t mention everyone.

• Frank Banashek, who had a love-hate relationship with the grass growing in his yard.
• Phil Bolinger, who passed along his deep and lasting faith in Christ, and whose appreciation of scripture lives on in his Sunday School class.
• Jean Galeone, whose love of music lives in her students and in the Afternoon Music Club.
• Edward Hook, who loved his family deeply and traveled regularly great distances to show it.
• Jerry Knepp, who had the driest of humor, and never used it at anyone’s expense.
• Betty Moore, who kept the church office organized for many years, and whose life of prayer was very strong, continuing in the prayer shawl ministry on Monday nights.
• Millie Vircsik, whose kindness in babysitting long ago made it possible for this church to have a strong music ministry today.
• Harold Wheeler, who preached the gospel across northeastern Pennsylvania for decades, and who left this world happy because he had seen all of his grandchildren over Christmas.
• Terry Yeager, who in her daily work helped usher in the computer age, but even more than that showed how, having handed two husbands and a son into God’s hands, herself went to meet him calmly and in faith. 

Others are on our hearts and minds, too, and I encourage everyone who knew them to consider, as a prayer in our funeral service says, “that of them that lives and grows in each of us”, and to say a good word about them to someone today.

            Even more, I call us all to consider what there is of each of ourselves, what God-given and divinely-nurtured grace, that lives and grows in the people around us or what special and precious gift God is giving the world at large through our lives, whoever we are, here and now, and to see it as one of the ways that God uses to draw earth closer to heaven and his children closer to his own heart.

"I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power." [Ephesians 1:17-19]